Where should I start on my journey to the Church, to Faith, to God? This question arose for the reason that for the last few years (consciously) I have considered myself an agnostic - I don’t seem to deny God, but I don’t believe either. I haven't been to church for more than three years. But recently I caught myself thinking that it’s hard for me without Faith, and I want to go to church, but I’m so internally removed from all this that I don’t know where to start on the way back (if it’s even possible, because there was a period in my life when when I didn’t wear a cross at all, I consciously took it off). It’s still complicated by the fact that I live very far from home and don’t know which church could suit me (should it be under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church or the Russian Orthodox Church abroad or something else?).
In general, I feel like an orphan in my soul, but I don’t know how to get back. I was baptized and as a child I went to church with my parents, but somehow we never celebrated holidays much... And another question: is it possible in my case to find “my” priest, something like a spiritual father? I never had one, but the desire to have one appeared along with the desire to go to church. Such a person evokes a bright association for me.
Answer
If you, having once been baptized
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QUESTION:Where should a modern person who has believed in God and is aware of his belonging to the Russian Orthodox Church begin his “churching”?
ANSWER:First of all, every Orthodox Christian must have faith, know and understand fundamentals of the doctrine of the Christian Church and try with all our might live by faith.
In order to have faith It is not enough to put on a pectoral cross, go into a church and light a candle there, being confident that you are already “Orthodox.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly denounced even His disciples, witnesses of His numerous miracles, of lack of faith, who themselves performed many miraculous deeds with the Power of the Holy Spirit received from Him.
“Truly I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed and say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,” and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matt. 17.20.)
True Faith is the Gift of God. And this Gift is given to those who sincerely, “from the bottom of their hearts,” long to receive It.
"Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matt. 7.7.)
But in order for a thirst for acquiring Faith to settle in a person’s soul, that person must force to realize that the question of God, of Faith is not just a question of “life and death,” but of Eternal Life and Death.
Obviously, any person, at least once in his life, has thought: who am I, why do I live, is there anything after death?
Unfortunately, most people are not looking for an answer to these questions, but, absorbed in worries about their “daily bread,” and some about a new “Mercedes” or other luxury or necessity items, they try to erase them from their consciousness or put them off for “someday.” Then ".
The scary thing is that this “later” may not come. The soul of a person, living only with the worries of “This age”, under the burden of sins accumulated throughout life, suffocates and dies, becomes incapable of perceiving spiritual phenomena, incapable even want know God. As sad as it may be, the number of such “dead souls” is increasing catastrophically in our time.
Those who do not drown out the meek voice of the soul, yearning for separation from its Creator, sooner or later face questions about God: does He exist; if there is, then what is He; which church has the correct doctrine about Him?
And if a person sincerely wants to receive answers to them, without being embarrassed by his surroundings, national or any other prejudices, then God, seeing the pure desire of his heart, certainly reveals Himself to him, giving him the opportunity to know the Truth and join Christ, who is: "The Way and the Truth and the Life." (John 14.6.)
It is also necessary to take into account that by following the path of the mind, through analysis and reflection, especially considering the modern amount of information available to everyone, you can quite quickly come to the understanding that God exists.
But remain with this rational, fruitless knowledge.
The main instrument for knowing God is the human heart, a heart that suffers, seeks, and languishes in the absence of Grace.
And, if it is not filled “over the edge” with base passions, envy, malice, voluptuousness, there will always be a tiny “living” piece in it, capable of feeling God, containing His Love, becoming the beginning of the Salvation of the soul.
An example of this is the thief crucified on the cross “on the right side” of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how the Gospel tells about it:
“They led two evildoers with Him to death. And when they came to a place called Skull, there they crucified Him and the evildoers, one on the right and the other on the left. Jesus said: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. And they divided His clothes, casting lots.
And the people stood and watched. The leaders also mocked them, saying: He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the chosen Christ of God."
“One of the hanged villains slandered Him and said: if You are the Christ, save Yourself and us. The other, on the contrary, calmed him down and said: Or are you not afraid of God, when you yourself are condemned to the same thing? And we are condemned justly, because We accepted what was worthy according to our deeds, but He did nothing bad. And He said to Jesus: Remember me, Lord, when You come into Your Kingdom! And Jesus said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”(Emphasis added) (Luke 23.32-36,39-43.)
This is the power of God's Love for His creation!
In the last minutes of his life, the robber’s conscience awoke: he pitied the Crucified One innocently, and the Crucified God forgave him all his sins and was the first to admit him into Paradise!
The Merciful Lord will forgive us all our sins,
4183 viewsHow to come to God and find faith
Very often a person who grew up in complete denial of faith in God thinks about it, trying to take the first steps in this field. How to come to God, gain faith in his power, how to plant a spark of love in your soul and today we will talk in parables.
Parables are small literary works in the form of a story or narration, in which deep life wisdom or moral instruction is concentrated, concentrated under the guise of a simple everyday story or allegorical fable.
How to come to God. Parable "The First Step"
One man came to Guru Ramanuja with a request:
Help me come to God.
Ramanuja looked at him and asked:
Tell me, have you loved anyone?
Love doesn't interest me. I left everything worldly. I want to come to God!
“Think again,” suggested Ramanuja, “and tell me, have you never loved either a woman or a child?”
I'm telling you, I'm not an ordinary layman. I am a person who wants to know God. Everything else doesn't interest me. I didn't love anyone.
Ramanuja sighed sadly.
I don't know if I can help you. A person who does not know what it means to truly love cannot find the path to God. Learn to love - this will be the first step to God. When you learn, come again. You ask me how to climb the stairs from the penultimate step to the last, and you still need to be able to put your foot on the very first one!
How to become a believer. Parable “If faith has no love”
If faith does not have love, then is it FAITH? How often in everyday life we observe hypocrisy, hypocrisy, soulless adherence to the rules established by people. At the same time, people themselves have long forgotten about this, and believe that the Lord gave them.
When a person was still a child, his grandmother always told him: “Granddaughter, when you grow up big, you feel bad in your soul - go to church, it will always be easier for you there.”
A man has grown up. And life somehow became completely unbearable for him. He remembered his grandmother’s advice and went to a certain temple.
And then someone comes up to him: “You’re holding your hands wrong!” The second one runs up: “You’re not standing there!” The third one grumbles: “He’s not dressed like that!” They shout from behind: “You’re baptizing yourself incorrectly!” And then one woman came up and said to him:
Man, you’d better leave the temple, buy yourself a book about how to behave here, and then come in.
A man came out of the temple, sat down on a bench and cried bitterly. And suddenly he hears a voice:
Why are you, my child, crying?
The man raised his tear-stained face and saw Christ. Speaks:
God! They won't let me into the temple!
Jesus hugged him:
Don't cry, they won't let me in either.
Agree that the moral of the above parables is extremely clear. After all, this is often what happens in life. The basis of faith in God is love. Without learning to love, it is difficult for a person to love God.
Sometimes, we people are proud that we are believers, churchgoers, we try to keep all the commandments of God, we read prayers morning and evening... but how often we do not understand simple everyday things and are far from merciful... focusing on little things, attaching importance to external things .
Cultivate in yourself sparks of love for your loved ones, for everything around you, and then your soul and heart, filled with love, will gain faith.
The most important thing that a person going to a temple should remember is that the servants are ordinary people who are always happy to tell you what to do. If you have a spiritual impulse and want to go to pray, then be sure to go and do not be afraid of anything.
However, it is good to visit in advance. To do this, you first need to get acquainted with the Holy Scriptures, that is, the Bible. It is better to start reading it from the New Testament, since the Old Testament is quite difficult to understand. According to the priests, many laymen who began their acquaintance with the Bible with the Old Testament became “stuck” with it. This is due to the complexity of the book's language.
The next step is prayer. You need to learn to pray. A prayer book will be a helper in this, which can be purchased at any church store. First, define small prayers for yourself, the main thing is to try to pray with concentration, thoughtfully reading the meaning of what is written. For example, you can start accustoming yourself to prayers with morning and evening rules, which are not large in volume. Gradually, the number of prayers read should be increased.
To church - without fear
Then you need to go to church service. To begin with, you can defend not the entire service, which lasts about 4 hours, but an hour or an hour and a half. The main thing is to sincerely pray and be attentive to what is happening in the temple. Be prepared that at first you may not understand much of what you hear from the priest, because the service is conducted in Church Slavonic. It would be helpful if you read the relevant literature before attending the service so that you know its procedure.
The next stage of getting to know the church will be familiarization with its Sacraments, such as Communion and Unction.
There are also Sunday schools for adults. It will be useful to attend these classes, since during them the priests talk about the life of Christ, miracles, features of worship, confession and much more. The main thing is that during the classes, every parishioner can ask a question of interest and receive a comprehensive answer.
It is important to understand that Christianity is not just a religion, it is, first of all, everyday life itself. And such a life is impossible without the church, without knowledge and reverence of its basic canons.
The first steps on the path to becoming a church member can be difficult, because to new Christians much in the Church seems incomprehensible, alien, and even scary. Who should I contact with questions? How can I get the opportunity to communicate with a priest? How and how much to pray? Archpriest Andrei Baykov, clergyman of the Epiphany Cathedral in Gorlovka, tells what needs to be done so that churching leads to a deep and conscious life in the Church.
What questions should you ask yourself?
A person who wants to become a church member must first of all turn to the roots, to his past. It is important to know whether he is baptized and who his godparents are. Each of us bears the name of an Orthodox saint - our heavenly patron. He has his own story, a biography - we call his life. This life is a must read. As one becomes familiar with it, many spiritual and practical questions will certainly arise: is it possible to achieve such holiness? Isn't this a fairy tale? How are we connected to the invisible world of God and the saints? All these questions need to be asked to the clergyman during live communication with him.
Churching yourself using some textbook or book is difficult and sometimes even dangerous. The fact is that now there are many false religious movements that one way or another offer their teachings under the guise of ideas of goodness, peace and universal happiness. Before coming to the Church, a person usually has only the same idea of spiritual values. But often behind these beautiful words lie things that can cause serious spiritual harm. To avoid such mistakes, you need live communication with the priest.
How to “catch” a priest?
Now all the priests at the end of each service give announcements about what services will be performed in the church during the week. This ad is like a road map and you need to navigate it. In a church, you can ask any candle holder or person in vestments what time the Divine Liturgy (in the morning) or the evening service ends. If you approach the priest after the end of the service, it will be easier for him to find time to talk with you. It is especially convenient for conversation after evening service.
There is no need to be afraid of anything! Answering the questions of newcomers is the direct task of any clergyman. I can’t imagine anyone among them who would refuse attention to a person going to church.
Many are afraid to directly address the clergy with their questions. To get rid of this fear, you can prepare a little theoretically. Take the books “The Basics of Orthodoxy”, “Spiritual Sowings” or “The Law of God” presented for family and school and read the initial theses about our faith. Who is Jesus Christ? Why did He come into the world? How does He distribute Himself in the form of Body and Blood during communion? These are fundamental questions. When a person is puzzled by them, he still has to turn to the priest and talk to him. It is necessary to find time for this. When a person comes with a book in which incomprehensible places are marked with a pencil, any priest will devote time to him and help him understand the most important thing: that the Head of the Church is Christ, He came to save humanity. That Confession, Communion and other sacraments that are performed in the Church are not scary. All of them are for us, and even he, a person who is not yet churched, can come, confess his sins and receive communion - if he is baptized, of course.
Another way to become a church member is to visit holy places, that is, places of special manifestation of God’s grace. However, I am more inclined to the first method, because worldly people do not always realize what the relics, icons and other shrines of the temples and monasteries they come to are.
How and how much to pray?
Sometimes unchurched people decide that they can determine a prayer rule for themselves, but there is a danger, on the one hand, of not praying at all, and on the other hand, of imposing unbearable burdens on themselves. To determine the size of the rule, you must first contact the clergy. He will recommend prayers that are not only filled with meaning, but also inspired by God - the morning and evening rules begin with these. They provide not so much information as spiritual strength.
Just as we offer milk first to an infant and then solid food, so to a newborn - a spiritual infant - we need to offer prayers that are unconditionally assimilated by the soul. Only after a while can one move on to the long canons and following Communion: when he already understands that prayer is direct communication with God, the Mother of God and the saints.
Should I participate in the sacraments?
We must try to encourage ourselves to confess and partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ, because this miraculously gives spiritual strength. Then the person will really begin to become a church member, and this will be visible to both himself and the priest. It’s no longer scary to go to confession, venerate icons, ask for help from the Mother of God, and take a blessing. He will begin to live not only by physical concepts and standards, the world will expand for him. A churched person becomes necessary not only at work and in the family, but also to members of the Orthodox family, the Head of which is Christ.
Internal churching must always be continued. We must strive all the time to consider ourselves insufficiently enlightened, not sufficiently understanding God. If a person finds time in his life and shows a sincere desire to understand what the Church is and who Christ is, then the Lord will always reveal Himself to him.
Recorded by Ekaterina Shcherbakova
